Agentic AI: turning possibility into reality with tech you trust

November 2022 was a moment that redefined the world’s relationship with technology. The launch of ChatGPT captured imaginations and sparked a global conversation about the possibilities of artificial intelligence. At Orange Business, we recognized this as more than just a technological breakthrough; it was a call to action. Determined to lead rather than follow, we set out to empower our people and our customers to embrace AI responsibly and securely. Just nine months later, we introduced Live Intelligence, a trusted, enterprise-grade platform designed to put the power of AI directly in the hands of our employees and customers. With Live Intelligence, we have fostered grassroots innovation across Orange Business, resulting in 20,000 personal AI assistants and 300 productized official agents. Today, with 100,000 users and growing adoption among our enterprise clients, Live Intelligence stands as a testament to our commitment. We are enabling innovation at scale, while ensuring trust and responsibility remain at the core of every interaction.

We've progressed from the traditional 'in the loop' model—where humans actively prompt AI assistants—to the more advanced 'on the loop' approach —where AI agents autonomously execute complex tasks and humans keep oversight.

This shift is about turning possibility into reality. While Generative AI has served as a digital assistant, boosting productivity by responding to human prompts, Agentic AI takes this further—independently managing entire workflows with minimal direct intervention. Industry reports anticipate Agentic AI to deliver up to 10X productivity gains, compared to the 2-3X improvements seen with earlier AI technologies.

This marks a profound structural shift, one that deserves careful reflection. Throughout the history of technology, each innovation cycle has brought new tools, from the internet to mobile and cloud computing. However, AI is no longer just a tool for productivity; it has become a digital co-worker, augmenting our teams and expanding our collective capabilities. This transformation begins with knowledge work, but as Physical AI and robotics continue to advance, we will see these digital co-workers across every sector, adding capacity and working alongside human colleagues. This new paradigm enables us to tackle challenges that were previously out of reach, unlocking solutions to problems we could never solve before.

Trust remains essential on this journey. Human oversight continues to play a critical role, and reviewing the performance of AI agents is just as important as managing human teams. By maintaining this balance, we ensure that innovation is always guided by responsibility and that technology remains a force for positive change.

Agentic AI operates at a system level, working toward specific outcomes, decisions, or deliverables. The key is defining your desired outcome and breaking it down into tasks—then assigning those tasks to the right mix of humans and AI agents, with appropriate oversight at every stage. However, Agentic AI is not just about deploying smarter assistants, it requires a robust architecture. 

At Orange Business, we combine large language models, secure data retrieval (RAG, text to speech), orchestration layers that coordinate multi-agent workflows, and enterprise-grade governance frameworks. These capabilities are embedded within our Live Intelligence platform and connected to our data backbone, ensuring scalability, traceability, and compliance by design.

At Orange Business, we're reinventing business processes with an AI-first mindset. In a recent hackathon, our teams applied Agentic AI to product development—from idea generation to prototyping and feedback—achieving a 6X acceleration in the process. 

Our most valuable use cases have emerged in two areas:

At Orange Business, we know that empowering employees is the first step to delivering exceptional customer experiences. Our expertise in employee mobility and collaboration solutions has enabled us to support organizations in transforming their internal operations, making every interaction more efficient and meaningful. For instance, by integrating Agentic AI into our enterprise platforms, we are equipping sales teams with intelligent assistants that handle routine queries, support building the commercial strategy and preparing for customer meetings. This shift allows teams to focus on higher-value tasks, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

Agentic AI is at the heart of our innovation strategy, and Orange Business Live Intelligence Studio is the engine that helps enterprises build and deploy intelligent agents to automate their workflows. Our approach begins with Augmented Agents, which address the challenge of high customer care costs while simultaneously improving the customer experience. For example, in Orange France Customer Services, this strategy has already delivered a 20-30% increase in call centre agent productivity, alongside measurable gains in customer satisfaction. Our ambition is to scale this model to around 2,500 call centre agents by the end of 2026.

The next frontier is Virtual Agents, which enable organizations to create entirely new customer care capabilities. In this fully agentic experience, no human involvement is required—imagine a customer visiting a website and being guided from start to finish by a voice agent that understands and resolves their request autonomously. A great example is SOSH, Orange’s fully digital brand, focused on providing mobile and internet services through a seamless online experience. Designed for customers who prefer managing their services digitally, Sosh combines flexibility with the reliability of the Orange network.

To further enhance the customer experience, Orange has introduced Sharlie, a next-generation AI voice assistant created specifically for Sosh users. Sharlie leverages advanced artificial intelligence to assist customers quickly and efficiently, making it easier than ever to get support and manage services through intuitive voice interactions.

AI is evolving at a remarkable pace, and at Orange Business, we are actively leaning into this shift—learning, adapting, and sharing the practical insights we’ve gained along the way.

At Orange Business, we have set a clear and ambitious vision: to become an AI-first company. This is not just a technological shift, but a cultural transformation that starts at the very top. Our leadership is fully committed to integrating AI into every facet of our business, making it a core driver of innovation, operational excellence, and value creation. By going all-in on AI, we are positioning ourselves—and our customers—to lead in a rapidly changing digital world.

Robust governance is at the heart of our approach to AI. As Agentic AI takes on increasingly complex and autonomous roles, we ensure that every deployment is guided by strong oversight mechanisms. This means aligning outcomes with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and ethical standards. We distinguish between experimentation, industrialization, and scaling, with each stage governed by clear processes, performance metrics, and escalation paths. We define clear evaluation criteria for each agentic solution and monitor their performance, with defined objectives, KPIs, and regular performance reviews. This disciplined approach ensures that our AI initiatives are both responsible and effective.

Our journey to scale is powered by a platformization approach. At Orange Business, we have built trusted platforms that bring together our mastery of digital infrastructure with the innovation of our partner ecosystem. This platform approach enables us to move seamlessly from agile experimentation to industrialized, production-grade solutions. Our platforms—spanning secure connectivity, sovereign cloud, and trusted AI—are designed for flexibility, resilience, and continuous evolution. By offering a rich catalogue of services and integrating best-in-class solutions from our partners, we provide customers and employees with the tools they need to innovate and grow at scale.

Crucially, we build on these strong foundations rather than recreating them—leveraging core platform capabilities for common, repeatable functions so we can concentrate on designing and delivering differentiated business use cases that drive real impact.

Trust is the foundation of everything we do. In a world where the line between real and fake is increasingly blurred, we are committed to building and maintaining trust through secure, sovereign infrastructures and ethical AI governance. Our trusted-by-design approach ensures data protection, compliance with European regulations, and transparency at every step. We introduce Agentic AI gradually, starting with low-risk processes and expanding as confidence grows. This careful, phased approach has been key to widespread adoption and has enabled organizations in even the most regulated industries to embrace AI with confidence.

We believe that the true power of AI lies in its ability to empower people across the organization. At Orange Business, we are committed to democratizing access to AI, enabling every employee and customer to benefit from intelligent automation and augmentation. By automating repetitive tasks, Agentic AI frees our teams to focus on innovation and value-driven activities. Human-AI collaboration remains central, with continuous feedback loops that drive learning and improvement. Through upskilling, transparent communication, and inclusive engagement, we ensure that everyone is equipped to thrive in an AI-augmented environment—unlocking new possibilities for growth and transformation.

As we continue exploring the capabilities of Agentic AI, we envision a future where human ingenuity and machine autonomy work in harmony. The technology is advancing rapidly, and organizations that embrace it thoughtfully will be best positioned to thrive.

By sharing our experiences and insights, Orange Business aims to help you take confident, informed steps toward the next phase of AI-driven transformation. Together, we can turn the possibility of AI into the reality of business impact.

Possibility starts with tech you trust. Orange Business is here.